Proctor Deputy Police Chief and City Councilor Troy Foucault was arraigned in St. Louis County District Court on Friday on three felony charges, including personally possessing morphine that was seized as evidence in a pharmacy burglary.

By: Mark Stodghill , News Tribune

Troy Foucault Proctor Deputy Police Chief and City Councilor Troy Foucault was arraigned in St. Louis County District Court on Friday on three felony charges, including personally possessing morphine that was seized as evidence in a pharmacy burglary.

Foucault, the second-ranking member in a six-officer police department, also is charged with felony theft and possession of a short-barreled shotgun.

The police officer stood before Judge Heather Sweetland in a jail jump suit and handcuffs shortly before the courthouse closed Friday. He told the court that he was in the process of hiring an attorney. He said he had lived in the area his entire life and wasn’t a risk to flee before his case can be resolved in court. Sweetland set bail at $20,000 and ordered Foucault to not possess a firearm and to abstain from the use of alcohol and nonprescribed drugs.

Proctor Police Chief Walter Wobig told the News Tribune that a complaint against Foucault was brought to his attention, and he contacted St. Louis County Sheriff Ross Litman. Litman referred the case to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for investigation.

Wobig said Foucault was placed on a paid administrative leave on Wednesday. “He was a good officer; I would never have expected anything,’’ Wobig said. “As soon as this was brought to my attention, I immediately brought it forward and we’re cooperating in any way that we can. I’m sure that justice will prevail.”

According to the criminal complaint:

An administrative assistant in the Proctor Police Department was looking for a lost USB thumb drive in Foucault’s desk drawer at the police department on Sept. 8 when she spotted drug items. Another Proctor police officer then searched the desk and found three different colored pills in a bank bag. The pills were in zip closure baggies inside the bank bag, along with at least $100.

The pills were found to be a 15 milligram and a 30 milligram morphine tablet along with a capsule containing OcyCodone and 500 milligram acetaminophen mixture.

Proctor police linked the pills to those stolen from a burglary at LCT Prescription Providers in Proctor earlier this summer. Wobig checked the evidence inventory that Foucault submitted from two drug burglaries and found that the officer’s count of pills was off in two cases. Foucault allegedly recorded one package as containing 117 morphine tablets, when it actually contained 217. Foucault recorded another package as containing 113 morphine pills when it had 133.

A BCA investigator showed a color photo of the bank bag, baggies, pills and money to Foucault. The defendant said that he didn’t recognize the items and didn’t know where they were at.

When told that the items had been found in his desk drawer, Foucault allegedly then said that the bank bag and money were his. He said he found the drugs and the bag in his squad car after he cleaned it out on Sunday. However, he also said that he may have put the drugs and bank bag into a “To be destroyed evidence bag’’ in the department’s property room.

Foucault conceded that his handling of the drugs was poor and not proper policy.

A search of the defendant’s home located a short-barreled shotgun between the bed frame and box spring of the mattress at the head of the bed in the master bedroom. To be a legal shotgun by federal and state statute, the barrel cannot be less than 18 inches long. The shotgun seized had a barrel length of 14¼ inches. Foucault admitted that the gun was his and that he had shortened the barrel as a visual deterrent (I don't get that at all. Visual deterrent???) in case his ex-wife’s former boyfriend came to his house. He said that he wanted to protect his family, and he believed the shotgun was a better deterrent than his duty weapon.

At one point, Foucault “was kicked out of his house’’ while the search warrant was being executed because he would not stop roaming through the house while officers were attempting to search it, the complaint alleges.